Black Star Quotes
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I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It's a high honour but can create limitations - I have to be fluid.
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My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying?
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We speak the love language, they speak from pain and anguish. Some don't love theyselves, so they perception is tainted.
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There are staples to my show. I have to be conscious about switching things up because I know people who saw me last year will say, 'He did that last time.' But if certain things work, they work.
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Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.
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People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star.
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These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain, Like slaves on a ship talking about who's got the flyest chain
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If you look at my career, doing albums with Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne or KRS-One and Jean Grae, I can't be pigeonholed.
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Once you're signed to a label you compromise.
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The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.
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We played against each other like puppets, swearing you got pull When the only pull you got is the wool over your eyes Getting knowledge in jail like a blessing in disguise Look in the skies for god, what you see besides the smog Is broken dreams flying away on the wings of the obscene.
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I don't care about what brand you are, I'm concerned what type of man you are, what your principles and standards are.
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I don't feel comfortable making empty music.
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I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.
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Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation...
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The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.
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To me, it's like happiness is about happiness, but happiness is a fight.
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There's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.
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Being called a conscious rapper is quite a compliment. It's a great thing to be. But as an artist, my nature is to not be in a box.
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A lot of these people, these program directors, just like anybody else in the world, even though they're supposed to be leaders in the world, they're followers. They follow what they think someone else is doing, instead of trying to blaze a trail.
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If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I'm not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I've got enough people listening to me. Not because I'm conscious, but because I'm dope.
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So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.
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We commute through computers. Spirits stay mute while our ego spread rumors. We're survivalists turned to consumers
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Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape now let it fall - HUNGH